The Heroic Ideal
by Lambotrist
Summary: After All Might's defeat of the warlords of America, the Red, Black, and Gold Kings, a curious new student enrolls at UA hero academy. Fate Universe/My Hero Academia Cross.


**The world has been reborn in the fire of change, and in the wake of that great flame it remains unchanged. Certainly the world's population is much lower than it was at the beginning of the millennium, but humanity, as it always has, has already begun to tame its newfound resources. So they have returned to the same course they followed all along.**

Regardless of the appearance of quirks people will remain the same; even if their desires change slightly, their desires remain true to themselves. Desires for power. Desires to rise above the masses. Desires to change the world. Desires to be recognized by humanity at large. All that changes are the symbols and how those desires are expressed.

"Rejoice, young man. Your wish will, at last, come true," the dark eyed man in priest's clothes said in a voice like gravel.

"Um, All Might... why are you wearing that outfit?" the freckled boy on the other side of the screen asked.

The hero All Might, AKA Yagi Toshinori, in the emaciated form he hid from the public, inspected his loosely worn vestments and startled like he'd just remembered what he was wearing.

"Eh? Ah. Sorry, young Midoriya. I lost my luggage. Holy Man was nice enough to loan me a spare set of clothes until I can replace it," the number one hero explained somewhat sheepishly, "Anyway, that isn't important, young man. What is important is that I, All Might, am on my way back from America."

The boy was understandably excited. It had only been a few months into his training with the number one hero with the mind to succeed the hero's quirk that All Might had been forced to leave the boy to follow his "American Dream Plan" on his own. The situation in America having escalated to the point that the government had finally relented and accepted the offers of foreign governments' heroes to deal with the growing unrest there.

"America? Do you know what hap-" the boy looked conflicted as he tried to figure out how to ask his question, and he never finished it as All Might cut him off.

"I can't discuss it," the skeletal hero told him, "And you shouldn't worry about it. The situation has been handled, and everything is going to be fine."

What happened, had been largely kept from any news outlets, the mass of information that had undoubtedly been extrapolated by Midoriya would have all come from biased personal reports by those involved, and the occasional bits of repetitive and limited information released by the government agencies futilely battling to keep the situation from growing further out of hand. What most of the public could tell was going on was that groups of various sizes composed of heroes and villains had been forming and clashing all across the United States. Those groups were led by individuals who were called "kings". That in itself wouldn't be particularly noteworthy; alliances and gangs formed and dissolved regularly everywhere. The deviation in this case was that the groups that formed were not always split along the lines of hero and villain, and were usually tangled mixes of both. Among those who felt they were "in the know" the popular number of conflicting factions and the associated "monarchs" that somehow kept them all together despite the vast differences among their members, was around three.

All Might considered giving the boy at least some iota of information, some of it would very important to know if things went according to the current plan, but instead shook his head solemnly.

"I just wanted to let you know I'll be by in a few days, I'll call you to let you know when," he said taking on a more professional tone, "Keep working hard to become a proper vessel, and we will review any needed revisions to the American Dream Plan on my return, Young Midoriya"

He started to give a thumbs up to the boy, Midoriya, but was suddenly knocked aside by a large black equine which followed up its headbutt by snapping at the hero.

"All Might!" Midoriya called as the camera's view shifted wildly from All Might's flailing dodge, "Is that a horse?"

"Ah, ah, don't worry about it m'boy, I"ll catch up with you later," he reassured his ward, holding the camera steady and forcing the large horse's snapping jaws away from him. He thumbed the button to end the call, and then jumped again as the horse surged forward to try and bite him again.

"Bad horsie," he admonished it, this time stepping back across the line marking the limit of the horse's reach that he'd accidentally wandered over while talking on the phone.

The horse appeared unabashed as it whinnied again and reared up trying to kick at him. This triggered a metal circlet on its leg, which beeped before a sound like a short blast of pressurized air hiss out. The black beast flinched and rapidly became unsteady on it feet before collapsing onto the hard metal with an audible thud.

"Ah, sorry," All Might mumbled, realizing he'd worked the horse up enough to set off the failsafe device attached to it, which had immediately blasted a dose of tranquilizer into the horse's system.

He walked back through the transport to the area where his companions for the ride were seated. A half dozen armed guards in face concealing helmets and armor, with their weapons ready, sitting at positions flanking a young man wearing a set of prison coveralls, handcuffs, manacles, and a bag over his head. He swelled into his muscle form as he stepped into the guards' line of sight and he saluted them before leaning over to check the prisoner.

"Oy, All Might, what was that noise?" the teen under the bag called out, leaning forward as he sensed the hero's approach somehow, "Is Bucephalus alright?"

All might scratched the back of his head and laughed sheepishly.

"He's just fine Young Alexander. He just overexerted himself and is taking a little nap," the hero explained.

The young man hummed thoughtfully, leaning back on the narrow bench his guards had cuffed his shackles to. Under the sleeves of the coveralls metal bracers glinted on the teen's arms, and when the boy tilted his head in thought All Might could see a similar silver band around the boy's neck.

"If you say so," the teen shrugged eventually, "Though I'll be pretty upset if something happened to him."

The armed men sitting around the boy bristled quietly at his words, and All Might forced a laugh to assuage both the young man and the guards' worries while circumspectly checking a device on his belt that told him that both bracers and collar were functioning as intended, and had enough charge to finish their current flight several times over. A small red light indicated that the device on the horse had triggered though, and that its reservoir of sedative would need to be refilled soon.

Nodding to the guards, he continued the short walk to the front of the plane where his seat, a significantly more comfortable number than the benches the boy and his guards were parked on. A privacy screen had been set up by taking advantage of some of the modular nature of the plane's interior; this allowed him to relax without demonstrating his emaciated form to the guards, or their prisoner, if he somehow managed to see through the bag on his head. After stopping in with the pilot for an update, they'd entered Japan's airspace and would be arriving at Tartarus in twenty minutes, All Might retired to his seat. The paperwork the Principal at U.A. had sent him to fill out and the materials for getting registered as a teacher were still waiting for him, and as was the nature of paperwork he'd swear the pile had grown while his eyes had been off it. Sighing, he deflated again, and pulled a pen out of his bag to get to work.

~o~oo~o~

The television droned on, unnoticed, about the resignation of members of the American's Agency for Parahuman Enrollment and Rapid Action Response as Izuku hastily shoved food into his face, his hair still wet from his shower. His mother scolded him from the kitchen, and he slowed down, barely. He only had a few minutes before he had to run to make the train to attend the U.A. entrance exam, but he couldn't help thinking back to his meeting with All Might earlier that morning.

The hero had seen, and loudly approved of, Izuku's work on the beach, no garbage being left except the pile of oversized metal leavings that he'd moved to the spot the recycling collectors had said they'd pick it up from later today. All Might had been especially impressed that the boy had managed to drag the shelled out mini truck to the TOP of said pile through the use of ingenuity, rope, and a lot of muscle. Though he did have to discuss with the boy the importance of planning your work in advance to avoid having to do the kind of jobs that usually require a crane, sans crane. But even that short discussion had been overshadowed by receiving All Might's approval for the boy to succeed One For All.

What stuck on the boy's mind was how rushed it had seemed. All Might had nearly flown from the scene when he saw the time and had barely had time for his explanation on using the quirk.

"Izuku, aren't you going to be late?"

He checked the TV News' clock, perched in the screen below a headline detailing the loss of life in its ongoing coverage of the situation in America as the picture showed a woman in an impressive business suit that failed to hide her impressive endowments leaving the podium of a press conference. Forcing the remainder of his food into his mouth, and grabbing his bag Izuku dashed for the door.

"Izuku!" his mother called.

He stopped halfway through the front door and looked back, mouth still full of food.

"Mm?

"Pants?" she suggested, holding up his uniform pants.

"Mm!"

~o~oo~o~

All Might sighed as he sank into the seat saved for him. Beside him the mouse-bear-dog-like principal smiled and patted the hero's arm, leaning back into his own seat to face the monitors.

"We were worried you wouldn't make it in time, the applicants are just arriving at the replica cities," the white furred animal told him.

"Sorry, I was asked to see off the transport. I had to talk the warden down from adding extra escorts. I also had to remind them to use one of their low profile vehicles and enter by one of the rear entrances," All Might explained, "They should arrive before this stage of the test is finished."

The principal nodded and turned to the screens where students were gathering outside the gates of the replica city battle areas,

"Were there supposed to be trucks in battle area A?" one of the teachers asked from behind him.

"Oy, oy. You're kidding right? The enemies are set to attack anything that isn't a building. Driving vehicles through there would be suicidal."

All eyes turned to the monitor the first teacher was indicating, showing a large unmarked cargo truck that, to a pro hero, held telltale signs of having been reinforced just pulling into the gate on the opposite side of the battle complex. A small riot started to break out among the judges and examiners as the vehicle drove blithely into the battle area.

"All Might," the principal said in a kindly voice, "Did you also tell them not to use their clearance to try to cut through the replica cities today?"

All Might sighed and got out of his chair again as the students on the screens began to encounter the robotic enemies.

~o~oo~o~

To the mind of Hagakure Toru, this test was no longer going well. Initially she'd managed to score an easy point after lucking into a one point enemy that apparently hadn't been triggered into attacking by the presence of a target. The first waves of U.A. candidates having stopped behind her when enemies began attacking. Defeating it had been as simple as finding the obvious emergency stop lever probably put there for those individuals with high precision low damage quirks to have a means of gaining points. That worked in her favor as well since her transparency quirk offered her no useful combat ability here.

Her second enemy, a two pointer, had activated underneath her as she tried to figure out where the manual shutdown on it was located. The wave of prospective students had caught up while she tried to find the surprisingly well hidden enemies without setting them off. As the enemy came to life she found herself fighting for a hold on it's back as it rushed down the alley it was hidden in toward another test taker trying to dodge a persistent one pointer. She'd played a hunch and tried forcing the enemy's serpentine head to one side, throwing off its balance and giving her room to reach inside the space left open for the neck to articulate and pull out a handful of wires, which, for reasons she was unclear on, caused something inside to explode and stop the enemy dead. She rolled with the fall as she was thrown off, and thanked whatever kind god was in charge of quirks that hers had come with slightly tougher than average skin.

Working on the assumption that she'd have to get at least a certain threshold of points to combine with her written examination scores, she'd tried to get a lead on the other students around her again. She'd thought herself lucky when she found a three point enemy waiting in a garage to complete her set and give her a solid six points. At least she hoped it was a solid number, as the active enemies that were continually waking up were well outside her ability to take down. Manual shutoff switches or not, it was incredibly dangerous for her to try to fight the machines with others actively targeting them at the same time, neither group able to see her.

The three point enemy's shutdown switch ended up being behind a panel on its back. She'd barely gotten the panel open when the revving of the robot's internals warned her that once again something had set off the machine she was on, and holding on for dear life she cried out as the machine rolled out into the road. The enemy wasn't as fast as it's lesser cost brethren or she'd probably have had trouble staying on it as it took the corner onto a side street at its maximum speed.

The sight of some kind of cargo truck, struck her as odd but when she could make out the surprised expression on the driver's face as the enemy pulled into the street in front of him.

" _Die, fleshbag_ ," the enemy under her intoned in it's robotic reverb, ignoring the fact that its target was a vehicle and not a "fleshbag."

Hagakure quickly finished turning the rotating switch hidden under a panel on the warmachines' back and yanked as the simple pictures next to it suggested. Relief flooded her as the machine slowed down beneath her.

" _From hell's hearrrt I sssstaaaab aaaat theeeeeee_ ," the robot growled, it's limbs dropping uselessly to the side and its wheels coasting.

She sighed in relief as the machine stopped, then hissed in pain as the missile packs on its shoulders fired off on either side of her buffeting her with the backblast. Of the six missile complement, three never cleared their chambers, and one fell to the ground harmlessly, it's thruster unlit and warhead not armed, but the last two still spiraled out to crash into the ground around the truck.

To Toru it was like something you only see in a movie as the truck shook from the missile's explosions. Truthfully, the missiles were a lot of flash without much punch behind them in order to make them safe for use in the test. The idea that lack of punch couldn't be compensated for by a panicking driver was quickly borne out though as the truck swerved hard and then rolled as its tires clipped a curb. The truck tumbled and bounced off the corner of a building before coming to a sliding stop on its side.

"Oh dear," the invisible girl ran over to the vehicle and peeked in at the driver and his passenger who were various degrees of unconscious. Thinking quickly she grabbed a bit of rubble that broken off one of the buildings and smashed it against the windshield. The rock bounced off leaving a minor mark on the glass, having failed to reach the critical speed needed to punch through the reinforced material.

~o~oo~o~

A moment earlier, in the back of the truck a redheaded young man had been smiling at his guards. When the vehicle had suddenly roared as the engines were fed more gas, the driver radioed back to them about robotic pursuers. One of the guards had started to cover the teen with their rifle while his partner covered the backdoor of the truck.

The young man said something in English from his seat. A seat to which he was firmly attached by seatbelts and a chain connecting his handcuffed hands to a ring on the side of his seat.

His armed "friend" growled back a cursory answer to him in accented English, before shouting at his radio in Japanese, "What's the situation?"

The redhead laughed and before the man on the radio answered the truck started veering left and right wildly before starting to slide as the sound of explosives rocked around it. His laughter intensified as the truck hit something and rolled and the guard rolled inside with it. They screamed as they smacked around the truck like flesh pinballs with a hatred for flat surfaces. The teenager's laughter stopped abruptly as one of the guards began to panic fire, filling an already dangerous situation with bullets.

After short seconds that seemed to last an eternity, the truck slammed to stop on its side. The guard that had been pointing his gun at the young man landed next to him and moaned in pain before stilling. The glint of metal from the keys on the man's belt, temptingly near the redhead's hand, caught his eye and the smile he'd lost when the guard had started firing blindly reappeared.

"Lucky," he laughed, using the japanese pronunciation of the word.

~o~oo~o~

The acrid smell of melting glass assaulted Mina's senses as her fingers ran down the edges of the reinforced windshield. She pushed more acid out through her fingertips and the speed of the acid cutting sped up slightly until finally she could carefully lift the windshield clear. A pair of disembodied hands wearing gloves hovering over a pair of shoes immediately reached into the truck to start pulling the men there out.

"Thanks again," the invisible girl said, "Um…"

Mina dropped the windshield and was slightly awed at the way it stayed intact instead of shattering. Then she realized why the other girl had stopped, smiled and spoke.

"Ah hah, I'm Ashido Mina. Mina's fine," she half laughed.

"Thanks, Mina. I'm Hagakure Toru," the other said, trying to do a polite bow around the unconscious driver in her grip.

"Nice ta meetcha," the pink mutant replied, poking her head into the truck to grab the passenger, "Woah, this guy has a gun!?"

"A gun!?"

The passenger scraped on the windshield and had to be tugged free as the belts on which he had gear equipped caught on the edges of the melted glass. By the driver the gloves of the invisible girl started turning the victim over until she found the sidearm of her accident victim.

"What were these guys doing here?"

"Can you use your acid on these?" Hagakure asked, getting a nod in return from the visible girl.

Mina grabbed the rifle and held the weapon in her hands for a couple seconds until the points where gun met hand holding the barrel began to bubble and hiss. Her fingers began to slide into the weapon as it deformed like warm butter, until one end of the weapon fell off. She repeated the process with the handguns she pulled out of the unconscious men's holsters after Hagakure rolled them onto their side some distance from the overturned truck.

"So, is this part of the test? Present Mic didn't say anything about trucks," Ashido wondered aloud.

"I'm not sure it is. The-"

Her explanation cut off with a shriek when the back of the truck shook with a loud bang as something hit the doors from the inside. The girls stared at it and a second later it shook again with another bang. Again something smashed itself against the doors in vain, before going quiet.

"Are there people in the back too?"

The invisible girl shrugged, then remembered she wasn't wearing anything on her shoulders and added, "I don't know. Maybe there's something dangerous inside. Why else would they lock it?"

"We better check in case someone needs help though," Ashido asserted, despite her own nervousness about the strange situation.

She stepped up to the back doors and inspected the lock. It was a simple lever lock meant to hold the back doors of a truck closed with a metal bit to hold the lever in place, that was further secured with a padlock. Ashido's hands didn't even slow down as she twisted off the padlock like it wasn't there with the hiss of burning acid, and swung the lever out of its sconce. Stepping back, what would have been the right door, now the lower door, of the truck crashed to the ground, revealing an interior that wouldn't have looked out of place in the back of the SWAT vans you sometimes saw in American films. A pair of long benches along both sides of the vehicle with minimal spots for securing things above and below. There, they saw a pair of men on the ground unmoving, one of whom was being looked over by a young man with wild red hair wearing some kind of coveralls that had been pulled down and tied around his waist to show off the black tank top over his well-muscled upper body.

The boy greeted them cheerfully, carefully leaning the man he'd been handling back down. He said another few words in English that the girls couldn't understand and tilted his head questioningly.

The girls blinked at him and Ashido tried to suppress a blush as the winsome young man smiled at them.

Hagakure ground out a few words of English of her own that amounted to "I don't speak your language. What?"

The boy blinked at the sound of a voice coming from nowhere but quickly rallied.

He spoke again, still in English, but more to himself as comprehension lit his face. He appeared unbothered by the lack of a visible body to talk to, and instead moved to help the girl he could see remove the guards still in the truck to safety.

"My Japanese good no," he told the pinkette as they carefully carried the guard away from the truck using the upper door of the vehicle as a makeshift stretcher to keep from moving the guard's back and neck excessively, the limited schooling the girls had gotten before applying to U.A., and the boy's experience enough to know to build what tools offered themselves after a bit of acidic persuasion on the door's hinges. The young man appeared quite impressed by the quirk when he saw Mina use it to ruin the doors hinges so they could remove it.

"You speak Japanese!"

"Listen okay. Speak no," the boy disagreed, "I am Alexander. I am called Alex."

The girls were quickly introduced as they continued working, and in the minute it took them to get the other guard out of the truck and lined up with his comrades they managed to get across that the teen, while not able to speak Japanese much, could understand a good deal. After he stopped the acid user from further destroying the guns he communicated that he was a prince of some kind, which suggested that these men were escorting him and their weapons were legally owned. He then took the guns into his own keeping, tucking away the remaining pistol in the back of his coveralls, and taking possession of one of the rifles.

"FIVE MINUTES REMAIN!" Present Mic's voice echoed through the replica city.

Alexander looked confused, but at the reminder of their situation Mina and Hagakure began to panic.

~o~oo~o~

Hagakure Tooru wasn't sure what to make of the boy they'd pulled out of the truck. He seemed to take in everything happening around him without breaking stride or being fazed by it. After he'd been released from the truck he'd quickly taken the initiative out of the hands of his rescuers' hands as he directed their actions across a language barrier. A language barrier that apparently wasn't as a large an issue as any of them had expected it to be, Tooru's grades in English offering her a limited vocabulary they used to bridge the gaps in the redhead's listening comprehension, which, for reasons she was unclear on, had seemed to work better when he was listening to Ashido's rough speech rather than the polite speech that Tooru used. Though she'd been happy to switch to informal speech she'd rather expected the formal mode to match anything a foreigner would learn in the beginning of their education in the Japanese language.

They'd made good use of their ability to communicate, using one of their precious remaining minutes to communicate the situation they were facing. Alex in turn had, speaking in what sounded like mangled together sound clips from a native speaker, offered to help them score as many points as they could in the remaining time as possible. After a quick demonstration of the girls' quirks, he had then proceeded to examine the three point enemy that Tooru had shut down. Poking and prodding, or outright kicking the machine as he put a laser focus into examining its workings.

His attention was deep enough that Ashido had to pull him out of the way when a loud boy with the explosion quirk Tooru had seen at the start of the exam came rushing past with a stampede of at least two dozen or more enemies chasing him. The girls had braced for a fight, but apparently the explosion boy had the enemies quite solidly aggroed the enemies as none broke off from their chase. After the boy had turned the corner Alex had become excited about something.

Now Tooru was standing back on the back of the three pointer she'd shut down while Alex quickly did something to the front of it with a flashlight he'd pulled off one of his guards. She watched as he dragged Ashido in front of the robot, and then perched himself on top of its head and waved at her. Tooru stared at him blankly and he said something to her in english.

He mimed flicking something in the air, and continued to look at him confused. Sighing, he mimed it again and then made a second gesture above his head. After a moment she understood, or at least she thought so but she couldn't believe the instruction she was getting. She pointed at the robot below her and repeated the gesture back at him. He nodded. Hesitantly she reversed what she'd done on the control panel earlier, and underneath her feet the robot started coming back to life.

" _Systems restored. Acquiring target,_ " The robot made a show of looking around, apparently missing Ashido until it actually rotated so that she was directly in front of it, " _Target acquired. PREPARE TO DIE!_ "

Next to her Tooru could hear the missile pods on the robot's shoulders cycling new ammo into place. On the robot's front, still perched on its head, Alex reached down and smacked the side of the machine to no effect, as it started to roll forward to attack the pink-skinned girl. Then he reached down to something on the front of the robot. Almost immediate it stopped.

"Visuals _lost, attempting to reacquire target!_ "

For a long moment the three pointer bucked beneath the two teens, its oversized hands swiping in front of it and around its face, only narrowly missing Alexander. Finally the lights on the panel in front of her switched off again to match the way they'd been after she shut it down earlier, which now that she thought of it was odd, since a robot that was shut down really shouldn't have any lights lit on its display.

" _Aww…_ " the robot groaned as it shutdown.

Alexander just laughed and waved back at her again. Catching on she turned the switch she'd used to shut the robot down before then reversed it. Again the machine she was on came to life and acquired Ashido as a target. After a moment Alex leaned down again, this time clicking the flashlight in his hand to life and shining it at whatever it was she couldn't see.

" _Ah, I can't see! Target lost!_ " the robot droned out, " _Adjusting sights, reacquiring target._ "

Once Alex raised the light away from its face the machine began to turn back and forth again, as it had the first two times it targeted the other girl, and Alex started to smash the side of the robots head with his flashlight again.

" _WHAT WAS THAT!_ "

Instead of immediately locking onto Ashido again the machine continued to turn in place looking for the source of what was hitting it. Alex, who had been stifling himself while the enemy was on, laughed and jumped off the front of the three pointer to land in front of it.

" _THERE. YOU. ARE._ _DIE._ "

Alex just laughed at the threat and drew a pistol from the back of his coveralls. Tooru cried out in surprise, unaware that he was still carrying one of the guns. Unheeding or just ignoring her the redhead just fired a shot into the machine. The machine shut itself down a final time, and Alex waved at the her to get down from its back.

She quickly pushed the switch back to "off" just in case and ran around the robot. While Alex ran over to feel around the guards for something Tooru examined his handy work. Among the different models of robots there were completely different designs of various features; among these the number of camera lenses visible on them varied wildly. Three point robots had a trio of cameras set in their head. On this one, one of the lenses had been smashed, probably by Alex, before he'd made her turn it on again, and one was sporting a new bullet shaped hole in the lens. The last lens was covered in scratches that would probably have made any video it took ugly, but not worthless.

Before she could make a closer study, Alex called her name, and she turned to find Alexander's smiling face. He held out one of the guards' rifles to her. Glancing between the gun and the redhead she started getting a bad feeling about this.

~o~oo~o~

It had taken Alexander a disturbingly short amount of time to explain his plan to them, and a bit longer to convince them to enact it. Ultimately he'd convinced them only because they were running out of time to argue. The number of enemies they could see in the open was running out, which probably meant that most of the hiding ones had activated, eliminating Hagakure's only easy way of defeating them. What few there were left had all gotten embroiled in fights too close to other students to make Mina's acid useful. Alexander's plan, much as the two of them, and Hagakure in particular, didn't like the plan, it still seemed workable.

Mina watched as the exploding kid came around a corner a block down, like Alexander had said he would, via poorly drawn map, and she started to adjust her acid. Alex had asked her to spray a line of acid between the boy with the exploding quirk and his long train of robots. Unfortunately, she'd gotten out of the habit of making the kinds of acid he wanted a long time ago, and rapidly changing the quality of her acid wasn't something she'd had a lot of practice with. She pushed off as the exploding kid got within a half block, clear fluid dripped from her hands and sprayed from her feet as she ran across the street, cutting a line from one street corner to the other. Behind her the exploding kid flew yelled obscenities at her as roiling smoke began to draw an opaque curtain from where she'd lain the acid down.

One of the the first things quirk councilors had made her do was to try and adjust her acid to avoid generating fumes when she melted things. She had no particular resistance to said fumes and the smoke from acid burning things could be hideously poisonous even if it was very thin. Most of her issues with Alex's plan had actually been the amount of smoke it called for. Only the fact that the air in the city was actually nearly still, likely due to the exterior walls and the irregular street layout, made her willing to consider it.

As the smell of melting asphalt started to tickle her nose she rushed down the street. She ignored the boys outraged cries as she turned a corner, taking only a moment to turn and make a face at him and check the position of said enemies. Most of them appeared to have stopped on the opposite side of her smokescreen, barring a couple that hadn't stopped in time who were now taking potshots at the kid with the exploding quik. Alex had indicated on his map, hastily drawn on a wall with a marker stolen from the guards, that they would, though he hadn't been able to explain why that was.

" _Target Lost! Agh, right in the eyes! Reacquiring target! Obstruction detected! Come to me, my pasty cake! Where'd he go?! Are you still there? Coward, come out and fight me! Expanding targeting parameters! Warning: hazard detected! Look into my eyes when I stare at you! Coward, come out and fight me!_ " robotic voices rang out from the street's intersection as the machines lost sight of their target, some repeating similar lines or even speaking in chorus.

The sudden sound of gunfire made both her and the explosion boy flinch away from the smoke, and she took advantage of his inattention to dash down an alley. Trying to force her acid back to something that was benign to things that need to breathe, though the rapid changes were starting to make her skin crawl and turn clammy. The smoke producing stuff wouldn't be useful for the next phase of the plan as Alex had outlined it..

The other end of the alley she'd gone down turned right and exited onto the street where she'd left Alex and Hagakure to set up their part of the plan. Hagakure had similar problems with her part, and still hadn't been fully sold on it when Alex had sent Mina off. By the sound of things either he'd convinced her to use the rifle he'd stolen from the guards, or Alex had given up and was using it himself. Sliding to a stop at the alley mouth Mina listened to the gun fire and the growing sounds of angry robots.

" _Ow! Who dares! New target detected! I'll fucking kill you! Enemy attack from the right! Rest in pieces meatbags! I'll tear off your eyelids, so you can see the end! Love me, hate me - It all tastes the same! Target acquired! Mommy dearest was the clearest until she lost her bearing, now she's rusted, and is busted, and out of sight and hearing!_ " the enemies monotone lines were getting more disturbing as the test went on.

" _Bring me a bucket, and I'll show you a bucket!_ " a one pointer roared as it passed the entrance to Mina's alley. Abruptly the sound of gunfire changed, the rapid shots stopping, replaced by the sound of bullets being fired with more care. The robot passing in front of her abruptly crashed into the ground, and she saw that the eye on its lower body had been shattered, and probably the one on its face as well.

"Ashido!" Alex called out.

She dashed out, just using her feet now to conserve acid, and turned to see a wall of robots rushing toward where Alex stood behind Hagakure. The invisible girl held one of the stolen long guns in her hand. Alex waved to Mina and she nodded before turning back toward the enemies. Desperately hoping Alex knew what he was talking about she made small amounts of acid in her palms and flung it up to intercept those robots come at her. Before Hagakure had called out to her Mina had been taking out robots by using liberal amounts of the stuff to get points, and while her limit on acid for the day wasn't close yet it wasn't very far either.

Acid splattered and hissed off an approaching one pointer's wheel optics, and she whipped another palmful of the at its eye as it passed. The effect was immediate as the enemy's wheel locked and it face planted into the ground

" _Inconceivable!_ " it groaned as it shut down, but she ignored it in favor of the small horde Hagakure had attracted with her gunshots. Mina's hands flashed out, throwing more acid at eyes, legs, and wheels..

In the street she could briefly see into the intersection at the respectable pile of robots that were either still deliberating on choosing a new target, or just lay still where Hagakure's torrent of shots had managed to find something vital. More and more acid burned into the ground around her, and on the enemies running toward her as she continued to dish it out as quickly as she could while she refined what Alex had told her to try and put them down faster. He'd indicated, again by hasty drawing, that she should aim for the eyes, and maybe the wheels and legs, on the enemies, and as she fought she narrowed that down a lot.

Single point enemy's on their motorized unicycle tire could be stopped by a minor application of acid to their wheel, even if she missed she'd take out an eye lens immediately above it or leave a puddle in their path which destroyed the wheel anyway, both of which appeared to be a way to get the robot's attention. The target change seemed to cause them to slow down for a second so she had time to throw a spray of acid toward the last eye on the enemy's head if she'd gotten the other one or just dodge out of the way as the tire failed.

The two point enemy's were even easier. Their legs were too numerous to take out quickly, so she'd tried to focus on the trio of eye-lenses placed in their center of mass and the pair of wide placed eyes on the serpentine head that poked out of their body. She quickly found that even a miss at the head would usually hit the enemy's long neck, and eating through that would cause a two pointer to shut down just as quickly as a one pointer with a tire out.

Thankfully, three pointers were nearly absent from the explosion kid's train of robots, their missile pods allowing them to be a lot more indiscriminate compared to the one and two pointers whose ranged weapons, miniguns inside the arms of the one pointers and some kind of laser tail for the two pointers, were either for show, or turned off for this test. Though if they got in close she guessed that she'd be able to just hit all three of their eyes at once, assuming she could avoid the massive swings of their arms. Right now they were the slowest to respond to the attacks Hagakure had rained on them and were either stalling by the smoke curtain, or only just starting toward her.

Out of the corner of her eye Mina could noted the other member's of the robot mob that hadn't been attracted by Hagakure's random gunfire were beginning to turn and look in her direction. The horde of machines that the other test taker had been kiting had been reduced by a quarter, or maybe a smallish third, by Hagakure's shooting, and the robots currently trying to take Mina's head off brought those numbers up to a solid half. With her attention and acid production already near their limits with her current foes, Mina was fairly sure she couldn't take on more comers.

Fire, roaring and burning erupted from the curtain of smoke. Those enemies that had taken too long disappeared in the conflagration before they could finish making a decision. Following the blast through the boy with the exploding hands flew sailing into the crowd of machines he'd missed with his first massive attack. Explosion after explosion sounded out and the numbers of robots dwindled, their death cries filling the air with all manner of insults and dying threats.

" _Gimme my hit points back! Target is… a jerk. I'm sorry, mommy... I'm sorry! At least… I don't have to look at your ugly face anymore. Tis but a scratch! Come back here and take what's coming to you! I'll bite your legs off! Gotta get my hands...around...your throat. I'll be back!_ "

~o~oo~o~

Standing in the midst of a street full of ruined, or ruined just enough robots, Alexander couldn't help but feel somewhat proud of himself. There was a great deal of accomplishment in taking command of disparate random elements that you have little to no ability to communicate with and molding them together to meet a plan with unclear end goals. He wasn't entirely sure that the points he'd netted the girls would help them pass their exam, but he was reasonably sure that he'd at least gotten more points for Hagakure than she would have gotten on her own. Seeing Ashido fight he got the feeling she probably would have been fine if Hagakure hadn't drafted her to help with the toppled transport truck though.

"All according to keikaku," Alex laughed, looking over Ashido's work as she walked back to where he and Hagakure waited, "Keikaku means plan."

The Red King's love of the works of foreign cultures had forced dozens of hours of anime and manga on those around him. A sufficient amount of those hours had been ground in enough to give Alex a very vague understanding of the language, or at least pick out a handful of important words and phrases. The memes were an unfortunate side effect that he would not give up under threat of death.

In response to his words the girls looked at him confused, though at least one person listening in had heard all they needed to.

The young man with the explosion quirk who had taken advantage of the robotic enemies' simplistic targeting parameters to gather a large number to destroy all at once seemed upset by their siphoning off some of those same enemies. Upset like a poker table in the old west, at which someone had just stolen and used the aces you'd hidden up your own sleeves against you. An upset he made increasingly clear by blasting himself close to the trio, and lifting Alex up by his tank top. Apparently he'd heard the word "plan" and understood, correctly, that the interference had been Alex's idea. Though the boy was shouting what obscenities and what sounded like death threats at Alex, he couldn't actually pick out the full contents of the words fouling the air.

Alex was rather severely tempted to force the boy to put him down, but thought better of it. The crashing of the prison's transport truck may have afforded him his freedom, but given the nature of the situation he'd been dropped into, he had no misgivings that it was anything temporary. This was reinforced by the metal bracers still locked onto his arms and the weight of the silvered band around his neck. While he was grateful the girls hadn't asked about them, the shiny pieces of tech were probably still broadcasting his location to anyone with the eyes and ears to listen. Though at least none of the guards could fiddle with whatever fancy extra settings the devices had if they woke up, seeing as he'd quietly relieved them of the little controllers the warden had given them while he was disarming them.

 _Chik-tik-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-ki-kik_

Explosion boy seized up as rapid ticking filled the air. As the ticking fade he fell over in a nerveless pile, leaving Alex to try to land back on his feet. He yelped as his ass predictably landed on the asphalt instead.

Hagakure immediately started babbling something apologetic sounding, dropping the taser Alex had given her from numb fingers. He'd actually forgotten she had that, impressive given her state of dress and visibility, and the significant lack of both. Whether the taser would have worked on the robots or not was slightly academic at this point. He'd just wanted her to have some kind of backup in case worse came to worst, and the taser was an easier sale than getting her to carry the extra handgun.

Alex waved off her apologies with a laugh, brushing himself off as he got back to his feet. Now that his debt to the girls was repaid he should probably look into what to do next. Helping with the test was a nice diversion, but he still found himself in a fake combat area waiting for someone to come looking for him, and there was no way someone wasn't looking for him, and turn on his new accessories. Which while instructive would hopefully be unnecessary if he talked fast enough.

He was in the middle of considering how hard it would be to convince Ashido to melt his restraints off just for kicks when multiple detonations sounded through the battle area. The girls faced toward it like proper heroes and hesitated only briefly before Ashido scooped up the slightly drooling explosion kid and ran. Hagakure, unburdened, pulled ahead to where they'd left the unconscious guards. Clearly both of them had the making of excellent heroes, if Alex was any judge. If the instincts they had in the face of danger proved deeply ingrained they'd probably be good at their chosen careers.

At the intersection where the truck had flipped he could see some kind of giant robot was standing up near the center of the battle area. The girls stared, and further toward the robot prospective students could be seen fleeing. Alex laughed. That was the third largest robot he'd ever seen, right after the monkey robot. Devil take the monkey robot. The stares of the girls on him, or at least he assumed Hagakure was staring at him from the positioning of her feet and gloves, alerted Alex that they were waiting for him to tell them what to do.

"Points?" he asked them pointing at it. Not that he had any plan for dealing with that. All Might had been quite clear with what the guards could and could not put on their truck, so the RPG had stayed at the prison. He'd thought the rocket was overkill as well, and still did, but if he had to kill the giant machine wrecking its way through the city area he'd gladly pretend to agree it wasn't overkill for a prison transport.

The girls answered his question by shaking their heads. Hagakure making a circle with her hands.

"Serro pointo."

He laughed again. There were probably a great number of lessons that could be learned from having an enemy it's easier to avoid and finish your job while working around rather than attacking head on. Nodding to himself he swept an arm at the slowly approaching wave of scared students.

"Aizi. Tasukete," he told the girls in his fantastically broken Japanese. They seemed to get the idea after seeing their fellow test takers fleeing in varying states of weariness after almost ten minutes of near constant fighting, and ran to help those who were struggling after a short assurance that he would take care of the guards and the electrified young man with the explosive mouth and hands.

After waiting until the girls were fully out of earshot, helpfully directing students toward to where he was standing overwatch, he called out.

"You can come out now," he said to empty air, though not to Hagakure this time.

He suppressed a laugh at the sound of something large landing behind him. Acting like someone was listening in or watching you didn't always pay off, but when it did, it did so in spades. His posture stayed as unthreatening as possible he turned around.

"You have excellent senses, young man. Why? Because I was sneaking around here," All Might told him, standing just out of sight of the street where students were approaching.

"Haha, sorry for making you come all the way out here. My ride had some trouble. Thanks for waiting. I'm going to disarm now, alright?" Alex told the hero, stepping carefully out of sight of the approaching crowd.

Before he was completely out of sight he gave a quick wave goodbye to Ashido and Hagakure. Then he slowly pulled out the guns he'd taken off the guards and dropped them. Then the stun grenades. Then one of the backup knives, and the flashlight. Then the other backup knife. Finally, he dumped the silver boxes that apparently lit up with button commands for an authorized user to activate his restraints.

All Might pointedly stepped on the guns as he approached, and Alex huffed a laugh at the way they easily warped and crumpled into unrecognizable masses of metal before disappearing into the ground. The grenades were pitched into the sky at speeds that Alex would easily believe would see them into low orbit, and he whistled appreciatively. The rest was ignored, save for the controllers, which were collected. Then All Might grabbed Alex by the back of his coveralls.

"Don't bite your tongue," All Might told him.

Then they were gone, just as the students started coming around the corner. As they flew away Alexander could see the other battle areas in the distance, one of which currently featured a series of grand explosions that washed out the color of the sky. In another pieces of what looked like one of those giant zero point robots sailed into the sky. He was forced to assume someone else had been able to handle those robots where he hadn't bothered to consider how to.


End file.
